Preakness lives up to crazy reputation

Andrew Champagne, The Saragogian

Published 12:00 am, Sunday, May 19, 2013

Photo: REUTERS

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Jockey Gary Stevens (L) holds the trophy beside trainer D. Wayne Lukas (C) after their horse Oxbow took first place at the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland May 18, 2013. less

Jockey Gary Stevens (L) holds the trophy beside trainer D. Wayne Lukas (C) after their horse Oxbow took first place at the 138th running of the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland May ... more

Photo: REUTERS

Preakness lives up to crazy reputation

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It's not hard to envision the Triple Crown's three jewels as a royal family of sorts.

In the Kentucky Derby, you have the matriarch, with a sense of tradition and pageantry that accompanies the most famous horse race in the world. In the Belmont Stakes, you have the patriarch, stubborn and difficult to satisfy, but one whose challenges reveal the true greats of the game.

And in the Preakness, well, you have your stereotypical crazy uncle.

Nowhere else in horse racing can you go from wandering the grandstand and handicapping a race to enjoying what is, for all intents and purposes, the biggest college keg party in Maryland in the infield. While Churchill Downs does hold a party in its infield on the first Saturday in May, tell me, would the Kentucky Derby ever associate itself with a half-horse, half-overweight man named Kegasus, as the Preakness did a few years ago?

The Preakness is an experience that you just don't get anywhere else in the Sport of Kings, and it's something I got to process first-hand Saturday afternoon. The day began with me leaving my home in Clifton Park at 2:50 a.m., it ended with a long ride home through Pennsylvania to avoid the numerous parking lots on I-95, and I'm still a little hazy on what happened in between.

All I know is that the crazy uncle pulled another practical joke on us.

Gary Stevens winning one of America's biggest races at fifty-something? D. Wayne Lukas winning his first Preakness since Charismatic in 1999 and setting the record for most Triple Crown wins by a trainer? Calumet Farm, one of the most well-known names in the glory days of thoroughbred racing but a barn that nearly went bust two decades ago, finding glory in the 2013 Run for the Roses? What kind of story are you pitching to Hollywood, and who do you expect to make it into some low-rate inspirational movie?

And while I'm asking questions, where the heck was Orb? Orb, the latest greatest horse in the world, was supposed to circle the field and give Shug McGaughey the chance at horse racing's first Triple Crown since Affirmed in 1978. You're telling me Joel Rosario, probably the hottest rider in the world coming into the Saturday card at Pimlico, moved Orb too soon down the backstretch, couldn't keep up with a horse he beat by almost 10 lengths two weeks ago, and faded to fourth?

Even Gary Stevens couldn't believe this, and he lived it.

"When I hit the half-mile pole, I said, 'Are you kidding me? Is this happening?,'" he said in a post-race interview on NBC. "The race was over at that point. I just walked the dog to the half-mile pole."

The Hall of Famer turned back the clock, as he has, really, since he began his comeback earlier this year. The only place he was slow to was the post-race press conference, but Lukas was certainly not going to rush him along.

"I'm in no hurry," he said with a smile as wide as Inner Harbor. "It's going to be a long night!"

Stevens, Lukas, and the Calumet brass will undeniably use the next few days to celebrate a win nobody saw coming six months ago. The racing world will try to find some rational explanation for everything, from why Orb struggled to how the heck Gary Stevens got away with such reasonable early fractions.

Me? I'm just wondering how the crazy uncle will be received by the rest of the family.